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Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires
by Alexander J. Motyl (review)
Paul du Quenoy
Ab Imperio, 1/2003, pp. 569-570 (Review)
Published by Ab Imperio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/imp.2003.0070
For additional information about this article
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/559769/summary
Access provided at 19 Jan 2020 10:27 GMT from Reading University (+1 other institution account)
Ab Imperio, 1/2003
Paul du QUENOY
Alexander J. Motyl, Imperial Ends:
The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of
Empires (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). 128 p. ISBN:
0-231-12110-5 (cloth).
Empire is back in fashion as a
subject of academic study. This
is true not only in history, but also
in literature, anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines, including political science. In this book
Alexander Motyl has attempted to
move toward a theoretical framework to assess whether – and if so,
which – laws govern the fate of
empire. Adapting the earlier and
now relatively fallow constructs
of Johan Galtung, Karl Deutsch,
and Rein Taagepera, Motyl has
arrived at tentative theorizations
of what causes empires to decline,
fall, and, in certain circumstances,
revive. Tentative, however, is the
key word in his analysis. Virtually
all of his major points are made
with serious qualifications. His
introduction acknowledges that all
structural theories are “seriously
flawed,” (p.5), while the rest of the
book stresses the inescapable factor
of unpredictability in international
and domestic politics. Motyl’s overuse of the phrase “ceteris paribus”
(meaning “all things being equal” or
“if everything remains constant” – a
concept that rarely describes
international relations in any time
or place) is decidedly unpretentious,
for it describes almost every point
his analysis makes. This renders the
theoretical implications of his work
weak, if not altogether meaningless.
Such an equivocal analysis may
not be out of step with the author’s
modest goal “to make sense of the
downward slope of their trajectories,” – he is definit; ely right about
the inadequacies of international
relations theory – but he fails to
affirm any theoretical explanation
for the collapse of empires.
Motyl’s practical examples illustrate his non-theory. He shares
a number of good insights on an
impressive array of the world’s
empires (including Britain, Russia/
USSR, Spain, Austria-Hungary,
Wihelmine Germany, China, and the
Incan, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires) in an effective and
engaging manner that is rarely seen.
He leaves out other possible imperial
subjects, like Japan and Moghul India. He also fails to address the modish question of whether the United
States today constitutes an empire
and, as Paul Kennedy attempted
to do fifteen years ago, to examine
whether it faces decline. The biggest
conclusion that this reader drew,
however, is that the empires featured
in Motyl’s study were so remarkably different that any theorization
about them becomes so schematic
and generalized that it is virtually
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meaningless. If they really were so
diverse in their natures and histories,
it seems eminently reasonable to
suggest that a truly intelligent person
could simply study the histories of
several empires and draw unique,
comparative conclusions about each
one. Dominic Lieven has recently
done this in his book, Empire: The
Russian Empire and its Rivals.
Motyl is, however, relatively
more successful and convincing in
his last chapter, which focuses on
imperial revivals. Moving sharply
away from unsatisfying theories of
imperial decline, he looks at hard
empirical data assessing post-Soviet
Russia’s chance to reconstitute an
“imperial core.” Many facts militate
in favor of his affirmation of that
possibility. In economic, military,
and organizational terms, Russia
is strong in comparison to its fellow former Soviet republics. Huge
populations of ethnic Russians,
some of which are increasingly dissatisfied, live in the new neighboring
countries. The Near Abroad’s continuing dependency on Moscow and
Russia’s warmer relations with the
West may enable it to secure more
authority over the periphery without
risking a destructive war. Aleksandr
Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus
favors a closer political union with
Moscow. Ceteris paribus, as it were,
Russia’s imperial reemergence may
seem to be a safe bet, but myriad
unpredictable factors may yet toss
570
a wrench into Motyl’s prediction. A
sudden decline in Russia’s relations
with the West, a faster than expected
absorption of its Western neighbors
into NATO and the European Union,
or a sudden (and not unprecedented)
domestic political crisis could do
much to derail any movement in
that direction. Russia’s non-victory
in Chechnya may not have been a
categorical defeat, but it nevertheless illustrates that Moscow is having enough trouble holding on to
the Russian Federation’s separatist
regions. The success of President
Putin’s current policy of encouraging domestic social and economic
development may also matter more
to Russian elites than controlling
Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Yet Motyl’s arguments are well made, and
this portion of his work merits our
attention.